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Russian city of Chelyabinsk to host 2015 World Taekwondo Championships

Wednesday, 12 June 2013

By James Crook

June 12 - Russian city Chelyabinsk will host the 2015 World Taekwondo Federation (WTF) World Championships, it has been announced.

The city, around 100 miles north of the border with Kazakhstan, was chosen after Russia defeated competition from Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam and Rio de Janeiro in Brazil to host the event, which is due to take place from September 16 to September 23.

The event will be hosted at the Traktor Arena, which last year successfully staged the European Judo Championships.

Chelyabinsk has regularly held international taekwondo events.

The city has a rich sporting heritage and two of Russia's Olympic gold medallists at London 2012 were born in Chelyabinsk, Mariya Savinova and Ivan Ukhov, winner of the 800 metres and high jump respectively.

It was also decided at the World Taekwondo Council meeting, hosted at the International Olympic Committee headquarters in Lausanne, that this year's WTF World Cup Team Championships will be held in the Ivory Coast financial capital of Abidjan from November 28 until 30, and the British city of Manchester will host the inaugural WTF World Taekwondo Grand Prix this December, although the exact date has still to be specified.

The first ever WTF World Cadet Taekwondo Championships were confirmed to be held in the Azerbaijani capital city of Baku next year, whilst Mexico won the right to host the 9th WTF World Taekwondo Poomsae Championships in Queretaro in 2014, and Vietnam were named as hosts for the 10th WTF World Taekwondo Poomsae Championships, which will take place in Ho Chi Minh City in 2015.

WTF Chungwon Choue during the Council meeting where several major events were awarded, including the 2015 World Championships to Russian city Chelyabinsk

"I find it very fitting that the IOC headquarters are the setting as we meet again once again to shape the future of our sport and our organisation," said WTF President Chungwon Choue.

"For so long we have worked to meet the standards of the IOC.

"As that achievement came within our grasp, we move toward exceeding those standards and setting standards of our own."

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Fact of the day

At the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Iranian judoka Arash Miresmaeili was disqualified for weighing in at nearly four pounds above the limit for his weight class of his under-66 kilograms match against an Israeli opponent Ehud Vaks in the first round. It was claimed Miresmaeili had gone on an eating binge to protest the International Olympic Committee's recognition of the state of Israel. Iran does not recognise the state of Israel, and Miresmaeili's actions won praise from high-ranking Iranian officials. Mohammad Khatami, the country's President at the time, was quoted as saying Miresmaili's actions would be "recorded in the history of Iranian glories". He was later awarded $125,000 by the Government - the same amount given to Olympic gold medallists.

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